This week, Kickstarter debuted it 2024 Creative Download — an annual insider look at the concepts, creators and backers helping the platform to float its 35,000+ project launches last year. The report spotlights Film & Animation, with new insights on trends in toon crowdfunding and data on the year’s top projects.
Kickstarter 2024: By The Numbers
- 35,512 of projects launched on Kickstarter in 2024.
- $706,446,298.66 in total pledges to successfully funded projects in 2024.
- $138,815 — the most money pledged by one backer in 2024 (111 projects total)
- 2,053 — the most projects backed by one backer in 2024 ($28,523 pledged total)
- $116.32 — Average amount pledged (5% increase year-to-year)
Additionally, the Download found that the most-searched terms on the platform overall were “watches,” “Tarot,” “dice,” “keyboard” and “coffee.”
Film & Animation Insights
- 24% of all successful film campaigns were short films.
- The most pledges to the film category came from backers in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London and Chicago.
- Top-Funded Short Film of 2024: Nadine – A Golden Era by Tasha Ann Ladwig (live action)
- $61, 246 raised across 425 backers
- Nadine is an action short film set towards the end of the Hollywood Studio System in 1956. It is a story about the resilience of the human spirit, as the main character experiences the darker sides of success, fame and life inside the cage of a studio contract.
- Animation remains a strong force on Kickstarter, with dedicated fan communities helping to bring ambitious projects to life. Much like in Tabletop Games and Comics, backer enthusiasm is driving bigger and bolder campaigns. With 2024’s strong performance, we expect even bigger moves for animation in 2025.
- Animation saw $5 million in pledges and had the second total dollars pledged among all film subcategories — second only to documentaries.
- Top-Funded Animated Project of 2024: “Animating Cradle: Bestselling Fantasy Novels Come to Life!” by Will Wight.
- $1,275,446 million raised
- 8,224 backers
- Wight and his team at Hidden Gnome Publishing turned to Kickstarter to fund their project independently — just as they did with the books. And now, they’re set to bring Cradle to life as an animated adaptation, ensuring a faithful, high-quality version of the story fans love. For Wight and his team, this campaign was about more than just funding — it was about keeping the spirit of self-publishing alive and inviting fans to be part of the journey from the very beginning.
Check out the concept trailer for Cradle below. The preview was produced by Jay Oliva’s Lex+Otis Studios and released during San Diego Comic-Con 2024.
Access the full Kickstarter 2024 Creative Download report here.
